Gardening Judith Adam Tomatoes for Travellers Headed for home with spring in the air, we’d like to anticipate a bountiful summer garden. But is it realistic to dream of homegrown tomatoes ripening in the long days of summer sun? Is there enough time to get tomato plants into the ground, and expect to harvest juicy red globes before we’re packing our bags again for another journey? The red beefsteak tomatoes that are summer legends take a long growing season, usually 70 to 100 days to reach peak picking quality. The unique tomato flavour is a balance of ascorbic acid (a constituent of vitamin C) and sugar, developed under the intense ultraviolet light of summer sun at its highest arc in the year. The classic beefsteaks ripen at a leisurely pace, ready for picking beginning in the middle of August. A succession of new fruits continues to be produced and extends the harvest for approximately eight weeks, until cut down by frost. In recent years, that schedule has been disrupted by mid-summer periods of heat stress, causing tomato flowers to drop off the vines before forming fruit. Production catches up when temperatures eventually lower, pushing late-set fruit deeper into the season. Breeding work in the category of early-set tomatoes has produced compact plants that can put red tomatoes on your plate in as few as 50 days from transplanting into the garden. These early slicers and cherry tomatoes are bred for cold-climate gardens with short growing seasons. They produce their first set of fruit starting in early summer, allowing travellers with a short window of garden time to enjoy the red riches. Many early tomato varieties are available from Canadian seed companies, and an online search will lead you to reliable sources. Look for ‘Sasha’s Altai’ (59 days), a sweet and juicy slicer tomato bred in Siberia. ‘Red Racer’ produces first fruits in 57 days; and ‘Scotia’ can be picked in 60 days. Early cherry tomatoes include ‘Fargo Yellow Pear’ (45 days), ‘Black Cherry’ (50 days), ‘Purple Bumblebee’ (57 days) and ‘Red Alert’ (50-55 days). Start seed in April or early May, using small pots with drainage holes in the bottoms, and a bag of purchased potting soil. Put each container into a small plastic bag with the top folded over, and still open enough to provide air movement. Keep the soil moist, but not saturated. Put the pots in a warm place until seeds germinate, then move them to a bright location. Set plants into the garden in early June, giving a fertilizer application three weeks later. Provide support stakes if necessary and look forward to eating your first homegrown tomatoes starting in mid-July. If you like the idea of early picking, there are several other vegetables that will produce an early harvest. Look for green ‘Tango’ (53 days) and ‘Red Salad Bowl’ (50 days) curledleaf lettuces; red-stemmed ‘Intense’ (55 days) Swiss chard; ‘Patio Snacker’ (55 days) slicing cucumber bred for container-growing; and green ‘Endeavor’ (45 days) and yellow ‘Golden Delight’ (47 days) zucchini. You’ll be well fed at summer’s end, when it’s time to get back on the road. One perfect plant for spring through autumn Most gardens have at least one clematis vine, providing several dozen (and sometimes hundreds!) of blossoms over a four- to sixweek blooming period. These easy-to-grow flowering vines make a brilliant display, and leave a noticeable absence when they’re finished. One of the clever benefits of clematis is that they easily adapt to almost any location. Many are grown on trellis forms against fences; but, lacking sophisticated garden architecture, they’re also willing to scramble through twiggy shrubs and the lower branches of trees. Small sections of chicken wire set into large open holes within aging evergreen shrubs is all the vines need to grab on and fill the space with greenery and flowers. Clematis are among the most useful of perennial vines, providing generous flower displays with little assistance. They bloom in part shade to full sun, and require moist and cool soil to keep their roots fromoverheating. Hot and sunny locations can be used, if the lower portion of the vines are shaded with plants grown in front of them. Providing a granular perennial plant fertilizer in spring and weekly watering will greatly increase the number of flowers produced in a season. The only maintenance required is to cut the vine stems back to 18 inches in late fall. The plant won’t suffer if you forget to cut the stems back, but you may find yourself with an excess of rambunctious growth that season. Saving the best for last, consider this information – clematis varieties can be selected for early, mid-summer and late blooming periods (check plant labels in the garden centre), providing a full summer of constant flowering. With the wide colour choices and diverse flower forms, it’s possible to fill a garden from spring to late summer with these trouble-free and permanent plants that require only basic maintenance. For travellers who are home for a quick summer before taking to the road again, clematis could be the most perfect plant ever! With a welcome arrival home and return to a familiar landscape, thoughts turn to what you most want from this summer’s garden – possibly a sweet red tomato! With the right seeds and quick action, you can be eating your homegrown garden produce sooner than you might think. CSANews | SPRING 2019 | 43
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